An example of how to use getopts in bash

How do I use getopts in Bash?

An example of how to use getopts in bash

1. getopt here to get the input arguments.
2. check that -s exists, if not return an error.
3. check that the value after the -s is 45 or 90.
4. check that the -p exists and there is an input string after.
5. if the user enters ./myscript -h or just ./myscript then display help.

What is getopts in shell script?

Description. The getopts command is a Korn/POSIX Shell built-in command that retrieves options and option-arguments from a list of parameters. An option begins with a + (plus sign) or a – (minus sign) followed by a character. An option that does not begin with either a + or a – ends the OptionString.

How getopts work in Unix?

getopts is a built-in Unix shell command for parsing command-line arguments. It is designed to process command line arguments that follow the POSIX Utility Syntax Guidelines, based on the C interface of getopt. The predecessor to getopts was the external program getopt by Unix System Laboratories.

What does colon mean in getopts?

If a letter is followed by a colon, the option is expected to have an argument, or group of arguments, which must be separated from it by white space. Each time it is invoked, getopts places the next option in the shell variable name and the index of the next argument to be processed in the shell variable OPTIND.

What is Optind in bash?

$OPTIND is the number of options found by getopts . As pauljohn32 mentions in the comments, strictly speaking, OPTIND gives the position of the next command line argument. From the GNU Bash Reference Manual: getopts optstring name [args] getopts is used by shell scripts to parse positional parameters.

Is getopts case sensitive?

Option letters are case sensitive. getopt() places in the external variable optind the argv index of the next argument to be processed.

What is Optind in Bash?

Is getopts portable?

Is getopts portable? I know that getopts would be the preferred way in terms of portability but AFAIK it doesn’t support long options. getopt supports long options but the BashGuide recommends strongly against it: Never use getopt(1). getopt cannot handle empty arguments strings, or arguments with embedded whitespace.

Is variable empty Bash?

To find out if a bash variable is empty: Return true if a bash variable is unset or set to the empty string: if [ -z “$var” ]; Another option: [ -z “$var” ] && echo “Empty” Determine if a bash variable is empty: [[ ! -z “$var” ]] && echo “Not empty” || echo “Empty”

How does Getopt work in C?

getopt() function in C to parse command line arguments The getopt() function is a builtin function in C and is used to parse command line arguments. Syntax: getopt(int argc, char *const argv[], const char *optstring) optstring is simply a list of characters, each representing a single character option.

What is Optind in getopts?

The variable optind is the index of the next element of argv to be processed. It is initialized to 1, and getopt() updates it as it processes each element of argv[]. The getopt() function returns the next option character (if one is found) from argv that matches a character in optstring, if any.